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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25846714">Of Floating Petals and Cabbage Leaves</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosytonics/pseuds/rosytonics'>rosytonics</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Tales of the Turtle Duck Pond [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Avatar: The Last Airbender</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>And that outsider just happens to be the turtle duck that Zuko threw bread at when he was a kid, Awkward Flirting, Developing Relationship, Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, No angst just good vibes, POV Outsider, Post-Canon, they're 19/20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 05:20:15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,673</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25846714</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosytonics/pseuds/rosytonics</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“Stop laughing at me!”</p><p>“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” wheezed Sokka between noisy bellows of laughter, clearly not sorry at all, “I’m just—dealing with the mental image of the guy who chased us around the world getting attacked by turtle ducks!”</p><p>--- </p><p>A peculiar courtship ritual takes place at the royal gardens, observed by a very smart (and hungry) mother turtle duck.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Tales of the Turtle Duck Pond [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1875505</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>395</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Of Floating Petals and Cabbage Leaves</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>if you went up to 9 year old me sitting on the floor and watching the ATLA premiere that fifteen years later i would be writing about the two ponytail dudes, i would not have believed you. </p><p>٩(๑❛ᴗ❛๑)۶  enjoy !!! you can find me on tumblr at seabride!!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">
  <em>103 AG. </em>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em>Year of the Pig. </em>
</p><p class="p3">The mother turtle duck that swam with her ducklings through the royal gardens was no stranger to the young man who now called himself the Fire Lord. A little under ten years prior, she was a mere duckling herself. She was too small to preen her own feathers, and often relied on her mother’s beak to keep her fluffy, downy coat in order.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">He had thrown a loaf of bread at her and her siblings, laughing indistinctly as he sat by a woman’s side.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">The flock of young ducklings had scattered through the water with a chorus of distressed little honks as her mother waddled from the crystal blue pond. She jabbed at the boy’s ankle with her beak, giving him a piece of her mind and several short and likely painful pecks—even pulling at his clothing for good measure. It must have been effective; the boy had visited the pond many times since, but never again threw a loaf ofbread into the water. Instead, he fed the turtle duck and her family little scraps of cabbage and other greens. They weren’t as delicious as the bread, nor as dense, but the turtle ducks gobbled them up nonetheless, and swam away satisfied and with less indigestion.</p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p3">The duckling had become a mother of many little flocks, and the boy with the bread had become a man.</p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p3">He had been gone for a long time and returned changed. His body was taller and broader, arms longer and hands larger and covered in rough spots and calluses. His hair was longer, too, flowing down his shoulder in swathes blacker than the night sky. A dark, red patch (thanks to their sensitive retinas, turtle ducks had the ability to see hues of red more vibrantly) spread from his cloudy, white eye to his left ear. The redness crawled down the side of his neck and eventually vanished into his collar. It must have been very painful. The mother turtle duck had sprained her foot during a miscalculated climb up a slippery rock; it hadn’t healed quite right, so she liked to think that she understood his agony. She had a tendency to lean to the left to accommodate her injured foot, and he leaned to the right to accommodate his blinded eye.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">She liked this Fire Lord more than the last one. The last one never came to feed her greens.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">It was spring. Pink, sweet smelling petals floated from the trees and landed silently onto the pond’s rippling surface. One of them landed atop her son’s fluffy head. She nudged it away with her beak.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">The Fire Lord came to the gardens often, but he usually did so alone.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">He was not alone today.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">A second man walked by his side, so close that their arms nearly brushed. He was taller and broader than the Fire Lord, with warm brown skin and vibrant blue eyes. The turtle duck’s special retinas allowed her to see blues more brightly too, and his eyes were indeed <em>very </em>blue. Bluer than he probably knew, which would have made her feel bad for him if her mind wasn’t occupied by the promise of cabbage and greens. He stood a head taller than the Fire Lord and tended to lower his face when he spoke to him: it wasn’t out of reverence and piety, but rather, out of a desire for closeness.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">His clothes were also unlike anything she had seen before. In her very long life—in turtle duck years, of course—she had seen humans of all kinds sit by the pond. Some were tall and thin, and others were short and fat. Some were young, others were old. But almost all of them wore the same shades of red. Crimsons, scarlets, vermilions, and rubies were commonplace, as were long, wide sleeves and robes that brushed the grass. This man, curiously, wore no sleeves and no robes. Rather, he wore a simple blue tunic and trousers that rolled up at his calves. Unlike the Fire-Lord’s long hair and pinned top-knot, his hair was wild—half up and half down, and shaved neatly and careful on the sides.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">They walked through the gardens, heads together as they spoke quietly. Upon reaching the edge of the sparkling blue pond, the second man unfurled a blanket onto the grass. He waited for the Fire Lord to sit first. He then eyed the blanket the same way that the turtle-duck eyed slippery rocks; something was bruised or broken, and he was trying to figure out how to move without causing more pain.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">“Do you want help?” asked the Fire Lord. He began climbing back to his feet. “Let me help you.”</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">The blue man held out his hand and shook his head. “I got it—just gimme asecond.” He carefully lowered himself to the ground with a wince, stretching out one leg andpulling the other close to him. “See?” When the Fire Lord looked less than impressed, the blue man nudged him with his shoulder. “Zuko, quit worrying about me. I’m <em>fine</em>. I walk on this knee every day.” </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">They were both damaged, just like the turtle duck and her twisted flipper.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">Maybe that was why they got along so well.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">A foot or so sat between their bodies, a space that would surely grow smaller as the afternoon passed.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">Fire Lord Zuko kept on frowning. “You really should’ve let me bring you a chair, Sokka.”</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">His companion, Sokka, shook his head. Maybe he was too proud to admit that he needed help, or maybe he didn’t want Zuko to worry.“What do we feed them?” he asked, “Bread or something?” At the promise of food, the mother turtle-duck began nudging her babies towards the edge of the pond.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">The Fire Lord gestured to one of his guards, who stepped forward bearing a basket.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">“No,” he said as he opened the basket, “Bread expands in their stomachs. It’s not good for them, even though they like it.”The mother turtle duck agreed; bread was soft and tasty, but it often left her feeling lazy and bloated. He pulled out a head of leafy green cabbage. The ducklings honked and swam in excited little circles.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">“Cabbage?” asked Sokka, “Huh. Never would’ve guessed that. Did I ever tell you about the cabbage guy from Omashu?”</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">Zuko smiled, shy and fond and nearly hidden by his curtain of dark hair. “Yeah, at least six times.” He didn’t say <em>please don’t tell me again</em>—but he didn’t say <em>please tell me again</em> either. He tore a cabbage leaf from the head. “I’m pretty sure we all owe him reparations.” He leaned forward, and the mother and her ducklings swam closer. She kept to the back, watching over them and ensuring that they would eat first. The leaf barely made a ripple on the water’s surface before the ducklings began to munch, and it was soon gobbled up and torn to nothing. Zuko ripped off another few leaves, and said “Give me your hand.”</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">It would have been a lot easier to just hand him the entire head of cabbage; this was clearly not an exercise in convenience. This was another silent request for intimacy, a way of saying <em>I want you close to me </em>without having to speak. Sokka offered Zuko his hand, and Zuko dropped the cabbage leaves into his open palm. Their fingers brushed just faintly, enough to make them both shiver and hope that the other didn’t notice.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">“Don’t throw it,” Zuko instructed, “The moms don’t like that, trust me.”</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">Sokka had a nice laugh. It was loud and unrestrained. “Oh, is there a story there?” The Fire Lord turned his head and Sokka jostled his shoulder. The space between their legs had already begun to shrink. “There <em>is</em>, isn’t there?! Now you’ve gotta tell me!”</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">“I was twelve!” Zuko covered his face with his hand, but still peeked at Sokka through his fingers. “Stop laughing at me!”</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” wheezed Sokka between noisy bellows of laughter, clearly not sorry at all, “I’m just—dealing with the mental image of the guy who chased us around the world getting attacked by <em>turtle ducks!</em>” He nudged Zuko’s shoulder with his own. More space between vanished. They stayed like that. The mother turtle duck honked to remind them what they were doing there. She was hungry! They clearly came to fed her and her young, but instead they were just ruffling each other’s feathers! “Okay, so I don’t <em>throw </em>it…I just toss it in real gentle?”</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">More cabbage leaves fluttered into the water. They spent the whole afternoon there, laughing and tossing leaves into the water until the turtle duck and her babies had eaten their fill and retired to their grassy nest for the night. The two men stayed on the blanket, long after the sun melted over the horizon and the cherry blossom petals twirled through the starry sky.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">The space between them was infinitesimal. They sat, shoulder to shoulder and knee to knee, and the Fire Lord said,</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">“It’s so peaceful here here.”</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">Sokka nodded. “It’s beautiful…” He glanced up at the infinite stars and floating petals. It was a new moon; her cycle complete, the Moon Spirit took a much-needed rest before she began shining her light upon the earth again. Her eyes were closed and her back was turned, and Sokka hesitated before asking, “You know what else is beautiful?” His hand crept carefully to the hem of Zuko’s robe. It was a question within a question.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">Zuko looked down, half terror and half hope. His own hand trembled in the dark as he laid it down over Sokka’s. “What…?” The humming cicadas and trickling of a nearby fountain nearly swallowed his voice.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">Sokka leaned forward, and the space between them became nothing at all.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">In the safety her nest, the mother turtle duck laid her head down. She closed her eyes and fell into an easy sleep.</p>
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